It is fair to say that the Christian church in America is not impacting culture today the way it did years ago. Even in my 48 years of life I have seen a real decline in the influence of the church. Recently I was reading about the church and was confronted with these eye opening facts about the church in America. Perhaps these will be a startling to you as they were to me.
- Six thousand churches close their doors every year.
- Thirty-five hundred Americans leave the church every day.
- Only one pastor in ten retires while still in the ministry.
- Less than 20% of Americans attend church regularly.
- Only 15% of churches in the US are growing numerically.
- Only 2% of growing churches are effectively winning converts to Christ.
- Only 9% of evangelicals tithe to their churches.
- Eight hundred new church plants survive each year.
- Ten Thousand new churches would be needed annually to keep up with the population growth.
Those facts were a little disturbing to me and the weight of that reality should drive us as a church to seek God all the more so that we might be a part of pushing back the darkness in the world around us. The need is great but thankfully we serve a great God who is able to do far more than we might dream or imagine.
Let’s commit to pray for God to move in our hearts in such a way that we would be absolutely surrendered to Him and instruments that He can use for His glory. I want to see God so clearly glorified in this church that people are drawn here and keep coming back because they realize that something out of the ordinary is going on here. The ordinary has resulted in this bleak numbers for the church in America but we serve an extra ordinary God who can do great and mighty things. I pray that we will sincerely desire His presence in this place so that He is exalted here.
In His Amazing Grace,
Dan